O Brother, Where Art Thou?

The Coen Brothers succeed in creating an almost magical pastiche of 1930s crime and ancient Greek epic and even make it funny, with George Clooney as the fast-talking leader of a gang of escaped convicts crossing Depression-era Mississippi to get home and ending up in a number of tight spots. I manage to avoid singing along by jabbering incessantly. I compare the story to the Homeric epic on which it is (very loosely) based as well as to Preston Sturgess's Sullivan's Travels, where it gets its name. And I explain various 1930s customs, manners, cars, and secret organizations whose name I need not mention.